#3375 - 02/26/0212:47 PMRe: should i use a firewall for my internet
[Re: gnfnr2k]

Anonymous
Unregistered

Do you run OSX or OS9?<br><br>If you run OS9, no. It's the most secure operating system on the net.<br><br>If you run OSX, it has a built in firewall; FreeBSD, which Darwin is based upon (Darwin is the Unix flavour that Aqua runs on top of), is inherently quite secure - compared to other *nix's. However, if you're running multiple daemons, or any at all (SSH, AFP, FTP, HTTP), which you may well be, that can open numerous holes (of which we don't yet know).<br><br>The more ports you have open, the more likely there is to be a problem.<br><br>You can configure the OSX firewall manually, if you know how, but it has no frontend included by default to set it up graphically. BrickHouse is a frontend (quite costly, isn't it?) for this firewall.<br><br>Personally, I wouldn't worry. When I run OSX, I don't; though I do have a hardware firewall between my OSX machines and the Internet.<br><br>If you don't run any servers, don't worry. If you do? Well, whats the worst that can happen? It's a calculated risk; my take would be not to worry. Others may swing the other way.<br><br>It's up to you really... weigh it up.<br><br>Personally, I find it unnecessary.<br><br><br>

Take a look at my Chooser:<br><br>I have a cable modem connection and can see these computers in my network, they belong to persons who live in my neighborhood.<br>Seen it I've installed a firewall, just in case.<br><br><br>

When cable modems first became available in my area, I could see other Macs on the same node as me as well ... I even found some that had "guest" access activated - I was tempted to leave a note on their hard drives pointing-out their vulnerability, but I wasn't sure how legal that was =)<br><br>Since then, the cable company has changed things a bit and users can no longer see each other ...<br><br>Regardless, I have a hardware router/switch between me and the cable now, for a variety of reasons - security being one of them =)<br><br>You can never be too careful!<br><br>=)<br><br>***matt<br><br>

Well, as I mentioned in the post below, it's not a problem if the cable company has things set up straight ... just like any other network (including DSL), configuration and competent net admin is everything =)<br><br>***matt<br><br>

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